Not a lot going on hobby wise but I did get in a session of 2nd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) yesterday.
After reading Graeme Davis's blog about the 30th anniversary of WFRP I decided to try and see if i could join a game and get my RPG fix. You may remember I had played a few sessions of Call of Cthulhu awhile back on Roll20 and had been hoping to maybe start up another game with one of the OSR D&D clones. But so far I've been too busy, or scattered to do much about it.
Somehow I managed to get into an ongoing campaign and played my first session. It was interesting and not too far outside my experience after dabbling in Call of Cthulhu. What is a little difficult for me is trying to remain in character, my character is pretty opposite my personality. He is very depressive/pessimistic and a "cheap bastard". Not that I don't have tendencies to those things at times, I just don't spend a lot of time there on a daily basis.
It was fun to learn about the system and find some of the fan made charts to flesh out his background, so here it is:
Leopold Boselmann is the third son of
Reikhardt and Brita Boselmann although it has been questioned that
someone else is the father of him and his younger sister, Dagmar. He
was born on Monstille under the constellation Cacklefax the Cockerel
in the poor village of Herzholz, between Maselhof and Wissenberg in
Wissenland. As such he is morose, even by the standards of
Wissenland.
Following the lead of their father,
Jodokus and Hildric bullied and tormented Leopold and Dagmar until
Reikhardt and Brita divorced. After that Brita and her two youngest
children went to live with her Father, Alterer Bruder Holsteiner. He
had lost an eye in a mercenary band in the South as a young man and
was now the town's grave digger. Leopold's grandfather brought him
into the trade, but it wasn't long before Leopold realized he could
make more money by selling bodies to traveling merchants who dealt in
such things with the colleges of magic. Although he needed the money
to support his mother and sister, he came to the conclusion that all
magic was evil and the path to corruption.
After the death of his Grandfather,
Leopold's “Uncle” Liebink Hornlach took an interest in the
family, primarily Brita. He used his position as village Bailiff to
turn a blind eye to Leopold's doings, but as time went on he treated
Leopold's mother as more of a wanton than a lady. When Dagmar came of
age “Uncle” Liebink took a fancy to her and it wasn't too long
before Leopold's mother disappeared and Hornlach's protection dried
up.
With the open enmity of his Father and
Brothers, no Mother or Sister left to care for and the real
possibility of ending up at the end of the Hangman's rope, Leopold
packed his meager belongings and stole 9 Gold Crowns from Hornlach on
his way out of town. He probably is persona non grata in Herzholz.
His prized possessions are his
Grandfather's tarnished copper lantern and a gold earring from his
mother which he wears in his left ear. He is an adherent of Ranald
the Protector and has vowed to make a name for himself and give his
children a better start in life than he had. He also makes sure to
pray at the temple of Morr and make a small donation before robbing a
grave, just to be safe.
Doom: The hourglass shatters before thy
last grain falls.
So there you have it. Overall the session went well. I still have a lot to learn about character development in WFRP, but I think I have some ideas on how to progress.
My internet was a tad problematic, I'm not sure if I need a new router or not, but things have been dropping out quite a bit. Roll20 froze on me once and Skype crapped out completely once and was dropping out at the end of the session. With the dropouts, I'm not sure if it was skype or my headset. I have a logitech chorded G35 and the levels changed at one point during the session. What was bugging me was that I could hear myself with a slight delay in the headphones. I find it very hard to talk when I get a delayed play back of my speaking voice in the cans. I tried looking it up after the session and apparently the majority of gamers want to hear their own voice in the headphones. None of the sound settings on my surface seemed to cut the mic to the headphones but also allow it to be heard by skype and others. I finally remembered that in the past I'd run my audio through Voice Meeter for recording. By fiddling with the settings and turning off the mic in the playback channel I can be heard and not hear myself.
Now to figure out how to sneakily get my own agenda underway. While helping the party of course. ;)
Oh and welcome to Rogue Painter Chronicles. I don't see a blog or website in your profile. Let me know and I'll add it.
Happy Gaming.
Very interesting to read about playing the games using modern technology ... I've no idea what all the technical stuff you mentioned means, however ... But I'm really quite thrilled that connections are available for people to play from their own homes when real face-to-face gaming can't take place.
ReplyDeleteSomeday I might figure how to do it myself... But to be honest I struggle with the TV recorder box, so Internet stuff and computers will be way beyond me :))
Thanks Roy, good to hear from you. Playing online is really quite simple, all you really need is a way to communicate what you're doing with others. Many people role play online with others using some form of file sharing and way to communicate to each other in real time. You could do it over the phone even. If you've done any video chat on google hangout or anything like that, you've essentially already done it. Roll20.net has the ability to video and audio chat built in, but this group uses skype for the audio because Roll20 drops out more in their experience. All the tech stuff I mentioned is just me making it more complicated than it has to be. If you can operate a computer and surf the internet you can do this. Easy. The hard part is finding a reliable group, this one has been underway for 10 sessions prior to me joining, so they look like they will last.
ReplyDeleteThis is amazing news, I miss WFRP, a lot! My book got destroyed years ago and I've never replaced it but I've also never been able to replace the rpg either, nothing has ever come near it for fun factor.
ReplyDeleteHi dGG, these games are hard to find active groups for but they are out there.
DeleteWow, what a grim, dark background. Makes me wonder if *anyone* is ever happy in the Warhammer world :-) .
ReplyDeleteSounds to me like your ISP might be the problem rather than your router. But what do I know?
Hi Hugh. Leopold is from Wissenland which is the most depressive province in the empire. What's funny is myeslf and the other new player are both from Wissenland and both trying to be a total downer. It's actually pretty funny. The only reason I suspect my router is because the problems we're having started after the last one blew up and I got this one direct from Linksys. The ISP has some known issues and one thing that's gotten popular over here is companies telling you that for "just a few dollars more" you could have really fast internet. I call bollocks on that. I already pay quite a bit for broad band.
DeleteAm lucky enough to have mates here in Sac who also happen to be my regular rpg group so not had to try the long-distance roleplay option. Glad it's an option that is available and one that works though, cos it sucks mightily to move to/live in a place where there are no groups to join.
ReplyDeleteI really like your char's background. Would make for a fun if miserable git to play! :) I really try to get into my characters (Our group goes heavy on the roleplay and light on rules sotospeak) - sometimes too much. Maybe I should have gone into acting?
Hi Dai. My gaming group dried up after high school and I'm not sure why I never tried to get another going. We were quintessential murder hobos no matter what game we played. Our role play was usually degenerate oafs, not unlike our teen selves.
DeleteO, our group tends toward "Shag the princess" and other teenage silliness as well for the most part. Rarely serious, though arguing with another player "In Character" over moral choices has been some bloody fun times!
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